4. Learning and animal culture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tristram D. Wyatt
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Operant Conditioning ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Inherent Property ◽  
Human Ability ◽  
Behaviour Learning ◽  
Fine Tune ◽  
Animal Culture

Learning is an animal’s capacity to change behaviour, as the result of individual experience, so that it is better adapted to the animal’s physical and social environments. Learning helps to fine-tune behaviour in flexible ways that would be difficult to encode genetically. It is an inherent property of nervous systems in even the simplest animals. Memory is an animal’s capacity to retain learned information to influence future behaviour. ‘Learning and animal culture’ discusses both classical and operant conditioning; innate responses that do not require learning; social learning, which across generations leads to cultural traditions; and the use of tools, which is now known not to be a uniquely human ability.

scholarly journals Shared songs are of lower performance in the dark-eyed junco

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
pp. 160341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonçalo C. Cardoso ◽  
Jonathan W. Atwell
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Vocal Performance ◽  
Junco Hyemalis ◽  
Behavioural Development ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Lower Performance ◽  
Quality Signals ◽  
Song Types ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Animal Culture

Social learning enables the adjustment of behaviour to complex social and ecological tasks, and underlies cultural traditions. Understanding when animals use social learning versus other forms of behavioural development can help explain the dynamics of animal culture. The dark-eyed junco ( Junco hyemalis ) is a songbird with weak cultural song traditions because, in addition to learning songs socially, male juncos also invent or improvise novel songs. We compared songs shared by multiple males (i.e. socially learned) with songs recorded from only one male in the population (many of which should be novel) to gain insight into the advantages of social learning versus invention or improvisation. Song types shared by multiple males were on average of lower performance, on aspects of vocal performance that have been implicated in agonistic communication in several species. This was not explained by cultural selection among socially learned songs (e.g. selective learning) because, for shared song types, song performance did not predict how many males shared them. We discuss why social learning does not maximize song performance in juncos, and suggest that some songbirds may add novel songs to culturally inherited repertoires as a means to acquire higher-quality signals.

scholarly journals Evolution of social learning when high expected payoffs are associated with high risk of failure

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (64) ◽  
pp. 1604-1615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Arbilly ◽  
Uzi Motro ◽  
Marcus W. Feldman ◽  
Arnon Lotem
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Risk Aversion ◽  
Individual Risk ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Risk Of Failure ◽  
Expected Payoffs ◽  
Maladaptive Behaviours ◽  
Optimal Behaviour

In an environment where the availability of resources sought by a forager varies greatly, individual foraging is likely to be associated with a high risk of failure. Foragers that learn where the best sources of food are located are likely to develop risk aversion, causing them to avoid the patches that are in fact the best; the result is sub-optimal behaviour. Yet, foragers living in a group may not only learn by themselves, but also by observing others. Using evolutionary agent-based computer simulations of a social foraging game, we show that in an environment where the most productive resources occur with the lowest probability, socially acquired information is strongly favoured over individual experience. While social learning is usually regarded as beneficial because it filters out maladaptive behaviours, the advantage of social learning in a risky environment stems from the fact that it allows risk aversion to be circumvented and the best food source to be revisited despite repeated failures. Our results demonstrate that the consequences of individual risk aversion may be better understood within a social context and suggest one possible explanation for the strong preference for social information over individual experience often observed in both humans and animals.

scholarly journals Robots Can Train Humans Using Principles of Operant Conditioning Through Visual Reinforcement Tools

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Kieson ◽  
Harshal Maske ◽  
Charles I. Abramson ◽  
Girish Chowdhary ◽  
Christopher Crick
Keyword(s):  
Operant Conditioning ◽  
Positive Reinforcement ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Comparative Psychology ◽  
Guidance System ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Visual Reinforcement ◽  
Cycle Times ◽  
Basic Task ◽  
End Times

Researchers have established new techniques to study human-robot interactions based on current knowledge in interspecies communication and comparative psychology. Studies on animal acceptance of robot conspecifics in complex social environments has led to the development of robots that adapt to animal and human behaviors. Using a robot with adaptable algorithms developed by the authors, the researchers hypothesized that, by using familiar visual rewards as positive reinforcement, robots could use operant conditioning principles to teach humans a basic task. The robot in this study independently determines optimal control of construction equipment by capturing the motions from an expert operator. The robot then attempts to teach those same skills to novice operators using familiar, yet simple, visual reinforcement tools. In this study, participants were asked to manipulate a model excavator using feedback from the guidance system on a nearby computer screen. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: simple visual reinforcement, complex guidance, and no visual feedback (blank screen). To measure learning, participants returned a day later to repeat the task without the guidance. The group using simple feedback resulted in cycle times that were closer to the expert times than both the complex or control groups and were significantly different end times (p < .05) than either group. This result supports our hypothesis that, similar to what’s been found in vertebrates and invertebrates, robots can shape behaviors of humans using visual positive reinforcement.

The Rationality of (Over)imitation

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 678-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Keupp ◽  
Tanya Behne ◽  
Hannes Rakoczy
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Social Constraints ◽  
Rational Action ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Cognitive Foundations ◽  
Different Levels

Imitation is a powerful and ubiquitous social learning strategy, fundamental for the development of individual skills and cultural traditions. Recent research on the cognitive foundations and development of imitation, though, presents a surprising picture: Although even infants imitate in selective, efficient, and rational ways, children and adults engage in overimitation. Rather than imitating selectively and efficiently, they sometimes faithfully reproduce causally irrelevant actions as much as relevant ones. In this article, we suggest a new perspective on this phenomenon by integrating established findings on children’s more general capacities for rational action parsing with newer findings on overimitation. We suggest that overimitation is a consequence of children’s growing capacities to understand causal and social constraints in relation to goals and that it rests on the human capacity to represent observed actions simultaneously on different levels of goal hierarchies.

A Brief History of Social Learning Research

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hoppitt ◽  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Diffusion Of Innovations ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Behavioral Repertoire ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Learning Research ◽  
Evolution Of Mind ◽  
Animal Culture

This chapter provides a brief historical background to social learning research. The history of research into social learning and imitation dates back to Aristotle, who explicitly made the claim that animals acquire behavior through imitation and other forms of social learning. Aristotle was particularly impressed with the human imitative tendency. The three insights made in the fourth century BC—that humans are uncharacteristically reliant on imitative learning compared to other animals, that young children in particular acquire important aspects of their behavioral repertoire through copying, and that imitation appears intrinsically rewarding to children—are remarkably relevant to contemporary social learning research. The chapter examines how investigations of social learning have been central to research into the evolution of mind, the mechanisms of social learning, animal culture, the diffusion of innovations, child development, and cultural evolution.

scholarly journals Cultural flies: Conformist social learning in fruitflies predicts long-lasting mate-choice traditions

Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 362 (6418) ◽  
pp. 1025-1030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Etienne Danchin ◽  
Sabine Nöbel ◽  
Arnaud Pocheville ◽  
Anne-Cecile Dagaeff ◽  
Léa Demay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Cultural Inheritance ◽  
Theoretical Justification ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Transmission Chain ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
Animal Culture

Despite theoretical justification for the evolution of animal culture, empirical evidence for it beyond mammals and birds remains scant, and we still know little about the process of cultural inheritance. In this study, we propose a mechanism-driven definition of animal culture and test it in the fruitfly. We found that fruitflies have five cognitive capacities that enable them to transmit mating preferences culturally across generations, potentially fostering persistent traditions (the main marker of culture) in mating preference. A transmission chain experiment validates a model of the emergence of local traditions, indicating that such social transmission may lead initially neutral traits to become adaptive, hence strongly selecting for copying and conformity. Although this situation was suggested decades ago, it previously had little empirical support.

Rethinking Cognition, Representations, and Processes in 3D Online Social Learning Environments

2008 ◽  
pp. 176-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G. Jones ◽  
Stephen C. Bronack
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
3D Virtual Worlds ◽  
Movement Artifacts ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University ◽  
Do So

Three-dimensional (3D) online social environments have emerged as viable alternatives to traditional methods of creating spaces for teachers and learners to teach to and to learn from one another. Robust environments with a bias toward peer-based, network-driven learning allow learners in formal environments to make meaning in ways more similar to those used in informal and in-person settings. These new created environments do so by accounting for presence, immediacy, movement, artifacts, and multi-modal communications in ways that help learners create their own paths of knowing using peer-supported methods. In this chapter, we will review the basics of the technologies and the theoretical underpinnings that support the development of such environments, provide a framework for creating, sustaining, and considering the effectiveness of such environments, and will conclude by describing two examples of 3D virtual worlds used to support course instruction at the university level.

scholarly journals A functional paradigm for evaluating culture: An example with cetaceans

2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Linda Greggor
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Species Analysis ◽  
Learning Capabilities ◽  
Physical Attributes ◽  
Fitness Benefits ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Taxonomic Groups ◽  
Learning Ecology

Abstract Nonhuman culture was first considered in nonhuman primates because they are genetically similar to humans. However, evolution is not progressive and therefore many species may occupy niches that favor socially transmitted, group specific behavior. Not surprisingly, evidence for culture has accrued in several taxonomic groups, including cetaceans. If culture is an adaptation, it is imperative we understand the factors that favor its formation. Understanding the evolutionary origin of culture will allow for a wider range of species to be studied, including those that are difficult to test in the laboratory. I propose a broad-based functional paradigm for evaluating nonhuman culture; based on the idea that while not all cultural behaviors may garner fitness benefits to the individual, the ecological and social environments in which cultural behaviors evolved must have favored the physical attributes and social learning capabilities that allow for cultural formation. Specifically this framework emphasizes the relationships between social learning, ecology, social systems, and biology in relation to culture. I illustrate the utility of the functional paradigm with evidence from the ceteacean group, while setting the stage for a stringent species by species analysis. By means of contextualizing culture, the Functional Paradigm can evaluate a species’ potential to exhibit culture and can investigate potentially cultural behaviors [Current Zoology 58 (2): 271–286, 2012].

scholarly journals Laibach, Anti-fashion and Subversion

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-91
Author(s):  
Tajda Hlačar
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Alternative Music ◽  
Television Interview ◽  
Military Uniform ◽  
Ideological Language

The worldwide renowned Slovenian industrial alternative music group Laibach, which was also a member of the multimedia artists’ collective called NSK, has been a subject of many professional discussions. This article attempts to analyse Laibach’s conception of a uniform according to the theory of anti-fashion. As one of the most recognizable elements expressing a mythical, totalitarian aura, inseparably linked with the performers’ distant and constrained attitude, Laibach’s uniform can be erroneously comprehended as anti-fashion clothing, expressing fixed and rigid social environments. The analysis of Laibach’s television interview from 1983, in which the band is directly imitating the ruling ideological language, shows that the strategy of over-identification and subversion represent dominant principles of Laibach’s actions, combining them with the retro-method of using symbols and images of various cultural traditions and periods, as seen in their diversity of clothing worn, including the Yugoslav military uniform, miner and hunting uniforms, jeans and shirts, and even fashionable items. With the performative dimension in the ideological ritual and by emphasizing totalitarian tendencies in contemporary society, Laibach endeavours to show that all changeable multiform clothes are uniforms – timeless, universal and deprived of semiological meaning and thus surpasses the distinction of fashion and anti-fashion or fixed and modish costume. Nearly forty years after the establishment of the group, Laibach is conventionally dressed in regular clothes, nevertheless providing a sentiment of wearing a collective’s uniform.

scholarly journals Ratcheting up the ratchet: on the evolution of cumulative culture

2009 ◽  
Vol 364 (1528) ◽  
pp. 2405-2415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Tennie ◽  
Josep Call ◽  
Michael Tomasello
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Cumulative Culture ◽  
Ratchet Effect ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Active Teaching ◽  
Social Motivations ◽  
Different Populations ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution

Some researchers have claimed that chimpanzee and human culture rest on homologous cognitive and learning mechanisms. While clearly there are some homologous mechanisms, we argue here that there are some different mechanisms at work as well. Chimpanzee cultural traditions represent behavioural biases of different populations, all within the species’ existing cognitive repertoire (what we call the ‘zone of latent solutions’) that are generated by founder effects, individual learning and mostly product-oriented (rather than process-oriented) copying. Human culture, in contrast, has the distinctive characteristic that it accumulates modifications over time (what we call the ‘ratchet effect’). This difference results from the facts that (i) human social learning is more oriented towards process than product and (ii) unique forms of human cooperation lead to active teaching, social motivations for conformity and normative sanctions against non-conformity. Together, these unique processes of social learning and cooperation lead to humans’ unique form of cumulative cultural evolution.

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